I’m great at keeping promises to the ones that I love, but when it comes to myself, I can’t seem to make it happen.
I really want to do _________, but I’m just too busy.
If I’m really honest, I don’t trust myself to follow through.
When we imagine self-trust, it seems like this enormous, all-encompassing thing that we either have or don’t have. We may look longingly at the few people who seem to be able to follow through with their dreams. We may judge ourselves harshly against their brilliant example – using this as further evidence to support our lack of self-worth.
Self-trust is built upon small moments of showing up and following through.
Through moments of integrity, where your actions on your own behalf are aligned with what you want for yourself.
You are walking through your life making choices everywhere that you go.
What to drink. What to wear. What to say yes to. What to say no to. When to engage. When to pick up your phone to start scrolling mindlessly. When to look your partner in the eye. When to commit yourself to a project, even if it’s only for 5 minutes.
If you examine them closely, these choices are either bringing you closer to yourself or further away.
Self-trust is broken in small moments of refusing to show up or actively participate in your life.
The moments when you ignore your intuition, plowing forward out of habit or fear.
The moments when you say yes, but everything in your body wants you to say no.
The moments when you compromise your needs in the name of productivity or external validation.
The moments when you make yourself small to make someone else comfortable.
Breaking your self-trust is a choice.
It is the choice of deciding that something [expectations, beliefs about “success,” praise] is more important than how it feels for you to live within your life, within your experiences of the world around you.
If we were to think about building our relationships with ourselves as if we were building them with someone else, we wouldn’t keep showing up, excited and ready, for someone who constantly disappointed us. We wouldn’t keep calling a friend who never called back. We wouldn’t continually put ourselves through the turmoil of the rejection inherent in being blown off.
And yet, that it is exactly what we expect from ourselves.
We expect ourselves to keep showing up, no matter how many times we’ve been let down or disappointed.
We refuse to do the work and then we chastise ourselves for always being stuck in the same place.
We criticize our bodies, even when we haven’t put in the time to take care of ourselves or nourish ourselves deeply.
We want what we want when we want it, but we aren’t doing the work of showing up.
I will claim this one for myself, as much as anyone else.
I want a finished book. I want it so badly I can taste it. I want to hold it in my hands. I want you to hold it in your hands.
But I haven’t been writing. I haven’t been showing up.
That book is not going to get written in between reruns of Gilmore Girls. And, each moment that I think about myself judgmentally without sitting down to do the work, I am damaging my self-trust. I am beating myself up for something that I have not, in all honesty, been applying myself for.
This isn’t the end of the world.
It is simply an honest conversation with myself about what I want and what I am willing to do in order to make it happen.
We can tolerate the discomfort of our own disappointment.
We can rebuild our trust, one honest action at a time.
A five minute stretch of writing. A walk around the block. A nourishing meal. A compassionate word when judgment is expected. A deep kiss before you head out the door.
Because I want that book, but more than anything I want to be able to have deep, resounding, and unshakable self-trust. I want to believe in my own ability to follow through.
That kind of self-trust is my responsibility. It is my work to craft trust like that. To show up and follow through when I say that I will, and to take action on my own behalf.
That is my work.
Join me to day in rebuilding your own trust.
Join me in keeping one promise, taking one small action on your own behalf.
Join me.
{Photograph by ShanLeigh Photography}